Veterans Recall The End Of The War In Europe
With this autumn marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II — and May 7 the anniversary of the unconditional surrender by the German Allied Forces, the beginning of the end of the war — The Newtown Bee reached out to local veterans with an invitation to share their stories.
Ken Stroud’s memories of the end of the war in Europe are quite different from other World War II veterans. The St Rose deacon emeritus and former Royal Air Force soldier had been a Japanese prisoner of war for more than three years on May 7, 1945, when General Alfred Jodl, chief of staff of the German Armed Forces High Command, signed the unconditional surrender documents for all German forces to the Allies.
There was no way that the prisoners would have known that the Germans had surrendered, Mr Stroud said. He is not certain if the news would have had much meaning to the prisoners, anyway, as life in a Japanese prisoner of war camp was simply about living from one day to the next. The war in the Pacific continued to rage.
It was not until the prisoners awoke one day in August 1945 to find there were no Japanese guards in the Singapore camp where the prisoners were being held, that Mr Stroud had an inkling that things had changed in the European theater and elsewhere during the three and a half years he had spent in captivity. Just the day before, the young soldier had been hustled into the office by Japanese guards to fix a Dutch “wireless” the Japanese had in their possession.
As he fiddled with it, Airman Stroud realized that the volume knobs were turned down. When he turned it up, the Japanese seemed to be listening intently to what was being said. Because it was in Japanese, he had no idea what he was hearing. It was impossible to tell from the unimpassioned expressions of the Japanese officers, said Mr Stroud, if they were upset or not. The next morning, the guards were gone, and the prisoners were left to wonder, “What next?”
They switched on one of the abandoned radios and heard music from a London broadcast, and realized something big had happened. The men wandered down to the nearby docks. When a British cruiser came in, the soldiers on board recognized that the men, dressed only in the remnants of clothing they had worn when originally captured — ironically, just after leaving Singapore on what would be a circuitous route through Java to the island of Haruku and back to Singapore — were POWs.
“They threw us some bread, and invited us on board for a meal,” Mr Stroud said. As welcome as the food was, after years of deprivation, eating was painful. The cruiser was not able to take on the POWs, though, and when it left, the men returned to the camp. It was their only home, and they had no idea what was going to happen to them.
There was no celebrating, either of the assumed end of the war in Europe nor of that in the Pacific. Each day was about survival, until British naval officer Lord Mountbatten and his entourage rolled into the Singapore POW camp, in September of 1945, and announced, “You are no longer POWs. You are ex-POWs.”
By the time the POWs returned to their homeland, celebrations of the war’s end were past.
“We were just trying to get our lives together and move forward. Life in the military was over,” recalled Mr Stroud. “I never felt like I had missed anything, though. I was just glad that Hitler had been stopped,” he said.
Mr Stroud married, and in 1952 emigrated to Canada, then to the United States in 1956. His life, he said, has been good, and he looks forward to celebrating his 95th birthday in July.
Despite years dealing with nightmares and flashbacks, Mr Stroud is not bitter.
“I’m a person who learns as I go along. I can accept life, and I’m always looking for something better. You have to go along with what is going on,” he said.
Mr Stroud’s experience as a Japanese prisoner of war is chronicled in the book Prisoner of War Number 2378, written by his son, Adrian Stroud.
The Importance Of Patriotism
“People laugh at me for being too patriotic, but it’s very important to me,” said Dr Irving Freedman, touching the rim of his baseball cap. “World War II Bomb Disposal” read the yellow letters embroidered on the black cap.
Dr Freedman’s patriotism stems from his experiences in World War II, and in this 70th anniversary year marking the end of the war, he recalled his final months of service.
A member of the six-man US Army 19th Ordinance Bomb Disposal Squad, he was not yet out of his teens when they became involved in the monthlong Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, in December 1944. The German’s final offensive drive to win the war resulted in the deaths of 19,000 American troops.
Before that brutal month, the squad members had worked their way from the historic landing in Normandy, June 6 of that year, to England, and on to Belgium. All along the way, their job was to diffuse the bombs — some of them unexploded American bombs.
“At 18, you think you are invincible,” Dr Freedman said, “until you find out you are not.” There is no margin for error in dismantling bombs. He saw failed attempts that resulted in death and maiming. “I asked myself, why was I so lucky?” he said.
When the Battle of the Bulge turned in favor of the allies, the troops crossed the Rhein River into Germany. It was there that the young soldier began to think that the war might be coming to an end. Allied troops were being ferried across the river, “and I saw thousands of German troops with their hands in the air, surrendering,” Dr Freedman said.
He would not with his squad, though, just four months later when the war in Europe came to an end. Sickened with yellow jaundice contracted most likely from eating contaminated food, Dr Freedman was flown out of the war zone to Paris, and then on to England for hospitalization.
“I was in the hospital in England when I heard that the war in Europe was over, and that the Germans had surrendered,” said Dr Freedman. “I’m going home!” was his first thought, upon hearing the news. Now ambulatory, he joined other service men and women in celebrating at local pubs.
Home was Hartford, but it would still be weeks before he arrived in New York Harbor, and still more weeks before he was released from the hospital on Staten Island and sent to Fort Devens in Massachusetts.
There were lights everywhere, is what Dr Freedman remembers as his first impression upon arriving in the United States. There were no more blackouts.
It was at Fort Devens, he said, that the yellow jaundice was finally cleared up and it was while he was there that the Japanese surrendered.
“We went into Boston to party, to go dancing, listen to the bands. Everywhere we went, people were shaking our hands, picking up our tabs in restaurants. They were really happy for us. I was so happy it was over. I was starting a new life,” Dr Freedman said.
He was given an honorable discharge from the US Army, and ticket in hand, he boarded the train.
“I landed at the old train station, and took a cab to go home. It was a joyful reunion,” he said.
Returning home was more challenging than he expected. He was just 22 years old, and had spent four years being told how to dress, when to eat, and how to follow orders. Having to make his own decisions, he said, was the greatest challenge of reentry into civilian life. There were other difficulties, as well, some small, some big.
“I couldn’t get used to sleeping in a bed for a while. I would put the pillow on the floor and sleep on the hard floor,” said Dr Freedman. In addition, loud noises startled him easily.
He was determined to make something of his life, though. When a cousin suggested he train as a chiropodist (now known as a podiatrist), Dr Freedman traveled to Cleveland, Ohio, using the GI Bill to get his education. He married, and while the early years were a struggle, he spent the next several decades practicing podiatry in Connecticut, and as a member of the National Guard where he attained the rank of full colonel.
The discipline ingrained in him as a young soldier was of great benefit, he said.
Dr Freedman turned 91, January 17, 2015 — the same birth date, he pointed out, as that of Dr Martin Luther King and Benjamin Franklin. Seventy years after the end of the war, his life has been good, he said. But he avoids watching any war movies. He needs no reminders of the war he fought or the men he fought with, who were not as lucky as he was.
“I was granted this wonderful thing of not getting hurt. I felt it was my duty to be a good citizen; and taking care of people,” said Dr Freedman, “I think I’ve helped.”
A Number To Remember
Margaret Brokaw may not be able to remember a recent telephone number, but there is one thing the 95-year-old former Army nurse does remember: her Army serial number.
“I was told to memorize it. They handed it to me on a slip of paper, and I looked at it and stuck it in my pocket. The woman asked me my number and when I went to get the paper, she yelled, ‘I told you to memorize it!’ Boy, I’ve never forgotten that number,” Mrs Brokaw recalled.
She was 23 years old when she enlisted in the Army on December 2, 1943.
“I had read about joining, and I thought I could be there, helping,” she said of her decision to become an Army nurse. Before her discharge in March 1946, she would travel to England, Italy, and North Africa, providing care to the injured.
“It was heartbreaking to see these young fellows,” Mrs Brokaw said, many of whom had been blinded or lost limbs during battle. The nurses provided compassionate care, and had great admiration for the soldiers they looked after.
“God bless those boys. They were great, and they still played tricks on us, even in the hospital. They kept their sense of humor,” she said, and that helped her get through difficult times. If her patients had a sense of humor with all that had happened, she could, as well.
She was serving in Naples, Italy, with the 45th Division, when the Germans surrendered, ending the war in Europe.
“That was such a good thing. The 45th would celebrate if the sun came up, so when we heard the war was over, there was all kinds of celebrations,” Mrs Brokaw said.
With half of the nurses suddenly eligible to return to the States, the end of the European war meant double duty for the nurses like Mrs Brokaw, who still had time to serve. The war in the Pacific had not come to a close, however. Mrs Brokaw found herself on a ship headed to the Philippines. They had not yet reached that destination when the captain of the ship came on the intercom to announce “The war is over! We’re going home!” The Japanese had surrendered, and finally, peace was at hand.
The captain also threw in a brief announcement directed at Mrs Brokaw. “Tell that little nurse I’m bringing her right to her mother’s arms,” he said. The ship was headed to Boston, her home town.
She feels some guilt, she said, that the nurses arriving in Boston received a bigger welcome than did some of the GIs who had fought.
Not long after her discharge, she married and moved to Bridgeport.
“I worked at St Vincent’s Hospital on and off, while raising our family, and then I worked for the City of Bridgeport Public Health, for about 12 years,” Mrs Brokaw said, assisting with many health programs.
She did receive letters from some of the soldiers for whom she had cared for a number of years. One young soldier, in particular, is hard for her to forget. Hoping to prove his bravery, he ended up holding a bomb and having both hands blown off. As his nurse, Mrs Brokaw was at his side frequently, helping him eat and helping him to adapt. One day, after the war’s end, she received a letter. It was barely legible, and mostly scribbles.
“It was that young man. He had gotten [prosthetic] hands. He still couldn’t use the fingers right, but he wanted me to know,” she said.
Her civilian life has been quiet, in comparison to the treacherous years spent overseas during World War II.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t pray for those boys. They had a horrible time. Pray for them,” Mrs Brokaw urged, “and pray for peace.”